FACT CHECK: Viral photo of elephants crossing railway track a fake?

A photo showing a mother elephant and its calf crossing a railway track went viral last week but many social media users called the photo a product of digital manipulation. Times Fact Check found the truth.

Times Fact Check | Nov 30, 2018, 14:29 IST

Highlights

Photograph of mother elephant and calf crossing a railway track went viral.

The photo won a “Certificate of merit” at the Sanctuary Wildlife Photography Awards 2018.

Many social media users claimed that the photo is a fake.

CLAIM
A photo that captured a mother elephant and its calf attempting crossing a railway track went viral last week. The photo clicked by wildlife photographer Biplab Hazra shed light on how human intervention is making survival difficult for elephants. Hazra titled the photo “Impossible Odds”.

However, there are many users, across platforms, who said that the photo is a fake. Some users even claimed that the photo that won the Sanctuary Asia magazine award was actually two photos merged together. These users who called the photo fake pointed out that there are shadows missing below the mother elephant’s leg and that it looks as if she is suspended in air, and hence, the photo is not original.

Times Fact Check found out the truth.

The photo, meanwhile, triggered a conversation about the declining population of Indian elephants owing to fatal encounters with trains.

Two elephants try to navigate a railway crossing🐘 The Indian population of elephants is rapidly depleting due to fa… https://t.co/qkaqK8ql0y

The photo that won a “Certificate of merit” at the Sanctuary Wildlife Photography Awards 2018 was shared by Sanctuary Asia on its social media handles.

TRUTHThe photo is not a fake. Times Fact Check confirmed the authenticity of the photo after accessing the RAW image and verifying the EXIF data.

Here is the RAW image of the photo in question.

(Photo courtesy: Biplab Hazra)

Here is the EXIF data of the image:

VERIFICATION AND METHODOLOGYTimes Fact Check got in touch with Hazra, who won the “Sanctuary Wildlife Photographer of The Year” title in 2017 for his click called “Hell is here”, to know the truth about his photo in question.

Talking to Times Fact Check, Hazra said that he is quite hurt to learn that people think the photo is digitally manipulated. Describing the incident that happened years ago, in 2011, Hazra said, “The photo was clicked at Birsa Munda halt station when I spotted a herd of at least 45 elephants crossing the railway track."

“Many environmentalists had requested authorities not to construct this station there since that area is an elephant corridor. The request fell on deaf ears. Till date, that station is useless. It’s inside the jungle. I would have not have agreed with this intrusion into wildlife habitat, but I would have at least understood the construction of this station had it been useful to people. That is not the case here,” Hazra said.

Hazra then narrated the entire incident. He said, “I was observing the herd, and had been clicking photos and making a video. The mother elephant seen in the photo got down from the platform easily but the calf struggled. It then called another elephant for help, and finally managed to get the calf off the platform.”

Here is the photo of the incident:

(Photo courtesy: Biplab Hazra)

Times Fact Check got in touch with Gaurav Shirodkar, senior naturalist and photo editor at Sanctuary Asia and asked how the jury evaluates photos submitted for the photography competitions conducted by the magazine.

Shirodkar said, “We have our own process to check if the image has been manipulated in any way. Our judges go through each photo thoroughly by checking the RAW/camera original JPG along with the metadata. In this particular case, the photographer had taken the pictures in JPG, in 2011.”

"The photo in question is only edited within the limits permitted as per policy. For instance, we allow cropping of images and minor colour correction," Shirodkar said.

Times Fact Check also got in touch with Bittu Sahgal, writer, environmentalist, and founding editor of Sanctuary Asia, who was a member of the jury that selected Hazra’s submission for a certificate of merit. Rubbishing the allegations that the photo in question is fake, Sahgal said, “I do not blame people for jumping to conclusions,” and said that it is a “social media phenomenon”.

Hazra had also won the “Photographer of the Year” title awarded by “Nature inFocus” under “Conservation Issues” in 2017.

VERDICT

Times Fact Check has confirmed that the viral photo of an elephant and its calf captured while attempting crossing a railway track in West Bengal’s Bankura district is an authentic photo. It is not a fake image as claimed by many social media users.

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